how do i install plugins on beets if i installed thru apt?

[negativeten]

i installed beets thru aptitude, and my version of raspbian throws an error about my system being externally managed when i try to use pip. i really want to install whatlastgenre tho, which is a third party plugin that i think you're supposed to install with pip. what do i do here? im fine with reinstalling beets if that's necessary.

my apologies if this is a stupid question, but i can't figure out how to do this for the life of me.

[halloleo]

I'm not an expert of apt and how it installs Python apps. I assume it creates an virtual environment for the app.

Then one thing you can do is 1. find out where this virtual environment is and 2. run pip in this virtual environment.

1. Run

   head $(which beet)
   

   Look at the first line of output it should contain something like:

    #!/some/path/to/apts/venvs/beets/bin/python
   

   The virtual environment then is at /some/path/to/apts/venvs/beets. (You need to replace /some/path/to/apts/venvs/ with the analog part of the path in your beet loader script!)

2. Now you can run pip in this virtual environment with

    /some/path/to/apts/venvs/beets/bin/python -m pip
   

   To install your 3rd party plugin you might be able to do something like

    /some/path/to/apts/venvs/beets/bin/python -m pip install name-of-plugin-on-pypi
   

Hope this help!

[pprjack]

Good to know, but, where did you find the install instructions for this 'standalone version' of the lastgenre plugin, just to help out those of us who may be confronting the same issue?

[snejus]

Note alternatively you can

apt install python-pipx

pipx install beets[lastgenre,...]

And now whenever you want to add something new you can do it with pipx:

pipx upgrade beets  # install updates as soon as they are available on PyPI
pipx runpip beets install xyz  # if you need something custom, etc. etc

[pprjack]

Beets Plugins naming is completely Non-Intuitive which leads to ALL the confusion surrounding plugins on beets. If the folks who maintain the Beets Documentation did a better job documenting Beets Plugins this would NOT be a problem, but here we are. That Is All.

[JOJ0]

I'm not an expert of apt and how it installs Python apps. I assume it creates an virtual environment for the app.

As far as I know and with some double checking research a moment ago, Debian/Ubuntu and also afaik other Linux distributions install a system Python version and all (or almost all) packages use that version. In some cases you will have minor upgrades within a distro-release-version. eg. Ubuntu 2x.04 might have python 3.x at first but then get Python 3.x+1

So in short: There is no python env magic in Linux distros built-in. The solution to all this is what @snejus suggests: Use pipx since it handles environments for you! Or (my preferred way) handle Python environments yourself (use pipenv, pyenv, poetry, or whatever)

[JOJ0]

Beets Plugins naming is completely Non-Intuitive which leads to ALL the confusion surrounding plugins on beets. If the folks who maintain the Beets Documentation did a better job documenting Beets Plugins this would NOT be a problem, but here we are. That Is All.

@pprjack I maintain the Beets documentation - well we all maintain it - Beets docs are required by any contribution. Well I guess I feel very responsible in maintaining a very good / excellent documentation for the Beets project, so please go ahead! What are you suggesting to improve it? Please elaborate!